Lack retro media cabinet

I’m loving what Jeff in LA did with the Lack shelving unit. The sliding doors and hairpin legs are just perfect.

He says, “After discovering your site and seeing some of the other lack mediacabinet hacks, I thought I’d send some photos of my own. Yeah, I know, I need to do something to hide those wires between the TV and the cabinet.

It was pretty straightforward. I cut the aluminum slider channel into two sections matching the interior length of the cabinet, and screwed them in. I measured and cut my plywood into two long doors, then cut the walnut veneer into matching sheets, but slightly oversized. I sprayed adhesive on the plywood and the back of the veneer, then stuck them together and trimmed the excess veneer off the edges. I rubbed them with Watco danish oil and lightly sanded them with very fine sandpaper to give them the rich color. Using the jigsaw, I cut 2-inch holes in the door panels and pressed in the circular handles, securing them on the backside with a glue gun (I could have used the tiny nails that came with the handles).

Usually, the slider rails are sold as separate upper and lower guides where the upper guide is twice as deep, allowing you to make shorter doors that can be lifted up and out for removal. But I wanted the aluminum rail to be as low-profile and invisible as possible, so I used the shallower lower guide for both top and bottom. Plus, I was a cheap bastard and this saved me from having to spend another $35 for another 12-foot aluminum track. So these doors cannot be lifted out for removal. I loosened the screws on the lack cabinet, fit the doors in, then re-tightened the screws.

One snag was that my sheets of plywood were just thin enough to fit in the slider channels *before* applying the veneer, so with the veneer on they were too thick and snug to slide easily. So I had to spend some time sanding the edges on the back side of the doors to thin them up. In retrospect, I should have just bought some even thinner (maybe 1/8″) board.”

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Jules Yap "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

26 Responses to Lack retro media cabinet

How did you secure the legs to the bottom of the unit? I just tried doing this with the besta media cabinet but the bottom board seems to be hollow and now i have a bunch of holes under the entire unit!

this looks great. really good job.FYI, you can buy sliding door tracks, either wood or plastic that would cost less and have the proper upper track for door removal.Also, you can get a hole saw drill bit for $5+depending on size of opening, that will drill the hole if you don’t have a jigsaw.lastly, you could use wood legs that are either stained or painted to save money as well.the possibilities are endless.

*word of caution….if you put any amount of weight on the top of long Ikea units, it could be prone to center sagging….a center support would solve that.

really ’50/’60 looking!!wish my kind of fiancè would consider something like this for his tv room….i feel like he will say there’s not enough space for books and whatsoever.my tv set is hanging and there’s no place to plan a cabinet like this

Hi Scott,I left only one shelf, in the center. I had to cut it for clearance with the sliding doors.In my opinion, with a single central shelf the box structure is PLENTY strong to hold a heavy TV. The limitation in my case would be the legs; These angled legs create some torque where they mount to the case, so under heavy load the screws might just rip out of the cabinet. I think you would have to go with vertical legs, or with hairpin legs somehow reinforce the seating of the screws (maybe with epoxy).

Hi Jeff. Great work! One question… did you leave the 3 shelves in the Lack in place or just not install them? I’m interested in how sturdy it’d be without the shelves if a tv were to be put on top of it…

hi everyone,thanks for the kind comments.It cost about $190 beyond the price of the Lack unit, but it could be done cheaper. The big ticket items were:$30 for the 12′ aluminum channel$60 for a sheet of walnut veneer, because I bought from a lumber yard that only sold it in a 4×8 sheet. I have since been told of other shops where I could have bought smaller sheets.$80 for 4 stainless hairpin legs. I could have saved money by buying the raw steel legs and painting them silver, but I felt it was worth the extra bucks.

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